A big rambly horoscope with many bugs and no pictures.

Aries (3/21 – 4/19):  Do people really believe that radiation is getting more concentrated as it approaches the west coast?  Think about it, humans!  That's not how physics works.  Not that leaking radiation is ever a good thing, but a small amount of something dumped into a huge ocean gets diluted, not concentrated.  Sheesh.  Quit going to the dentist and you'll more than make up for it.  (Keep brushing your teeth and flossing, though, Aries. Do I sound more maternal than horoscopal?  Oops.)  Whereever we go, there we are.  Lucky you!  Lift your people up with natural merriment this week.

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  I was listening to a podcast about urination the other night (Try not to judge.)  It turns out ... drumroll... that all mammals empty their bladders at the same rate!  Whether you're an elephant with a huge bladder, or a mouse with a tiny one, it takes 21 seconds to empty it!  I think that's the coolest fact I know right now.  I'm going to stop taking the temperature of my coffee water (because really, 175 degrees, I'm so over you) and start timing my pee.  Taurus, if you're prone to conspiracy theories, think about the whole bladder thing.  Does it seem, um, strange to you -- all the mammals, some who actually live on grassy knolls, peeing in 21 seconds, which happens to be the age of legal drinking, and the number of letters in electroencephalagraph AND multidimensionalities?  Coincidence?  I don't think so either, Taurus.  Be careful.

Gemini (5/21 – 6/21):  Did anyone else hear the Radiolab episode about pet cremation?  (You see what I mean about the dragonflies?  At least they don't spend their short lives listening to podcasts about pet cremation.)  Anyway, I couldn't get myself too worked up about the fraud, which is that you get different ashes back -- it's not Fluffy, it's a cupfull of Great Dane.  They discovered this by handing in a fake fur cat stuffed with lard and hamburger meat, and they got back ashes containing bones.  Is that so terrible?  But, d will happen when I do the genetic testing?  I'll turn out to be Asian or tall or spatially intelligent or not so irritable?  What would be the 23 and Me equivalent of sending in a fake fur cat stuffed with Big Macs?  Gemini, back to you:  your future looks very very bright and loud.  Bring ear plugs.

Cancer (6/22 – 7/21):   There's so much discussion about what it means to be human.  Is it the thumb, or the ability to be tender with the other Homo sapiens, or awareness of mortality?  Do you think insects sit around wondering what it means to be bug?  I doubt it.  They just fly around, eating, playing with their friends, pollinating, laying eggs, laying traps, laying on hands.  Oh wait, they don't do that, because they don't have hands!  Cancer, use your opposable digits for excellence this week.  I mean it.  This is a real horoscope.

Leo (7/23 – 8/22):  Speaking of opposable digits, when I was about 25 and rode the bus all the time, I used to knit constantly.  One day, this woman approached me about a charity she had started for people who had lost their thumbs.  It had a clever name that I can't remember now, like "No Opposition!" or "Thumbs Away!"  Anyway, somehow it turned into me painstakingly writing out (by hand) a complicated gansey sweater pattern and mailing it to her in the US mail, and I never heard back and she stopped riding the bus.  Now that I think back on it, it seems so unlikely.  (Does that seem like a real scam? A fake charity for the thumbless, designed to get knitting patterns? In the US Mail?)  But more importantly, why would someone helping the thumbless even consider knitting? Isn't that like eating cake in front of dieters?  Leo, do fancy thumb tricks this week, but not in front of the dog.  It just makes her feel bad.

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22):  Speaking of bugs, I was making a giant dragonfly out of wire and sheer fabric the other day, and someone said something about how she's just waiting for the other shoe to drop, referring to elderly parents.  And Virgo, that pretty much defines mortality.  We groove along in the sweet spots, knowing that all manner of shoes and boots are hovering up there, poised to drop at any moment.  Don't look up!  But enjoy it while you can.  

Libra (9/23 – 10/22):   And speaking of dragonflies, someone commented how sad it is that some dragon flies only live for 24 hours.  Au contraire!  That's the happiest thing evah.  Because for those 24 hours, they're a dragonfly!  Key word = fly!  They have four wings that move independently, which is more mobility than any other species.  Okay, I may have made that up about any other species, but the rest is true.  I know people with zero wings who have spent 34 years in a cubicle.  Its longer, both technically and psychically, but is it better?  Is there a fate worse than cubicle?  Libra, avoid the cubicle when possible.

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21):  I sat down to wait for food in a teriyaki restaurant today, and we noticed a giant note left on a napkin at the abandoned next table that read, "This food was so burnt that we couldn't eat it."  The proprietor cleared their table, read the napkin, and then served us our own burnt food without comment.  I'm not sure what to make of that, Scorpio.  But I did appreciate seeing a giant note.  It was almost like a message in a bottle, with less bottle and more indigestion.  Your week will be like that too.  Less bottle, more messages.

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21):  When Little M was here last week, she said she'd been in a store with hats recently, and everyone asked her which one she wanted to buy.  "Buy a hat?  If I need a hat, my mom will knit me one!"  She said that before she realized that it sounds a little snotty.  But the fact of the matter is, she's right.  There's a lot of buzz about the new knitting store here, and I'll confess that I'm making her Valley Garb, the sweet little hat pattern designed just for us.  We do live in the Handmade Hat Capitol of the Radio Free World, after all. (I noticed that today.  Every single person I saw this morning was wearing a handmade hat.) Speaking of Radio Duvall, they're having a fundraiser on 12/14, and they need all of the stuff you normally need: music, food, drink, stuff.  Join up generously unless you think we should remain more focused on handmade hats and less the farm report.

Capricorn (12/22 – 1/19): Last week, I rushed home from my booty call job; usually that place just makes me want to drink, but I don't, at least not right away, which I believe earns me a few points in the mature column.  Not that we're keeping score.  But anyway, I was trying to make the house cozy (meaning above 52 degrees) before M arrived and I was doing too many things at once -- making cake, making frosting, making dinner, making a fire, making up my mind.  I slowed down to make the fire, because that's the only way it works.  In fact, arson mystifies me.  It's not easy to start a fire.  Oh, right, gasoline!  At any rate, the frosting was boiling on the stove, and the snake got out of it's cage and Jeffrey needed attention.  So I shoved a bunch of wood in the stove and went back to tend the frosting, but the fire went out rather than burning, which is disappointing, because if we believe in destiny a fire is born to burn, a gum wall is born to be sticky and gross, and I was born to review permits for wetland and stream impacts.  And the pile of wood lodged itself against the door, blocking it from being opened.  It wasn't as bad as the last time it happened, when I was trying to burn a 17 page hand-written unabomber-ish letter from the guy we absolutely won't call the Outerwear Stalker for the obvious reasons.

Anyway, I did the usual unsuccessful things that people do, like wait for it to rot but it doesn't so you make a fuse out of candle wick, dip it in gasoline, thread it into the woodstove chamber and light the end.  Things like that.  Capricorn, where have you been lately?  And are you wondering when we'll ever get to your horoscope?  I know.  Here it is.  Your week will be a strange mix of the fire not starting, and then nearly blowing up in your face.  That's not entirely bad, though, Cap.  But I do recommend eye protection.  

Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18):   Speaking of arson and so on, I heard a PSA on the radio the other day, it started with, "If your house was on fire, would you wait a week to call the fire department?"  Then there was this long radio silence (really!)  during which I thought, "YES!  I had no idea they'd be advertising this particular nagging thought of mine on the radio!"  I was super excited, because I had no idea where they were going with it.    But after the pause the baritone came back on and said, "Of course you wouldn't.  So why would you wait for a mammogram."  Shoot.  I hate it when it's a rhetorical question and I get it wrong.  Am I the only one who has secret fantasies that my house burns down?  Fess up, people.  Aquarius, regret is the future tense of indecision.  Or, the inverse, the past tense of regret is indecision.  I heard that on Welcome to Nightvale.  Make decisions before they make you, Aquarius.

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20):  So, it turns out that the British spy who was found dead inside a padlocked duffel bag in a bathtub died accidentally.  Duh.  Pisces, be careful with that shit.  Accidents happen.  Oh, and speaking of weird accidents?  I saw a pair of scissors in the middle of the road today.  Right in the roundabout.  Did anyone else see that?  No running with scissors either, Pisces.